75 Gallon Tank with Red Belly Piranhas, two years later.

[alphar]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to share my story with you guys. Two years ago I started to make plans to buy my very first fish tank. I started reading here and different forums and decided to begin with a 75 gallon freshwater tank (48WX18DX22H). I ordered it custom with 12mm thick glass. I was originally intending to keep an Oscar or a green terror but once I saw two Red Belly Piranhas (Pygocentrus nattereri) in a store, I decided to get some for me. I ordered 2 Eheim 2217 and a 300 watt Fluval Heater.

I cycled the tank using a Molly, a Betta and a Tetra. I know it was not the best idea but after 1 month of cycling they were still alive and intact. They were my girlfriend's and she no longer wanted them in her house. She was expecting that they would not survive but they did. They are pretty tough fish. In the end a friend of mine kept the Tetra and my girlfriend took the other two back.

I went looking for some red bellys but could not find them. I was about to buy a 2 inch serrasalmus but my girlfriend found a store that had tank bred piranha fry . When I say fry I mean that they were like 1/3 of an inch. Really small. I told my girlfriend that we should wait a month to buy them but she insisted and even convinced the guy to sell us 11 of those recently born piranha. Anyway, now looking back that was my first mistake. Once in the water the fish were extremely difficult to feed and even to look at. I should have bought 10 gallon tank while they were growing and then move them to the 75 gallon.

The guy told me to feed them Tubifex Worms and we did but then I did some research and found that they are not very good for fish and they smell like an open sewer. Long story short, the Nitrites went up, I had to do some 50% water change and clean those stupid Worms from under the gravel. The first 2 weeks were a nightmare and ended up with 4 baby piranhas and 1 that still looked like a fry. I began feeding them fresh shrimp that I tied with a string so that it moves around with the current so they would take small little bites. I also bought brine shrimp which I found they liked better but could only buy them on the weekends. I found out that you can freez brine shrimp and still the piranhas will eat them. But the tank was still too big.

Here are some pics.
Tank getting cycled with 3 amazon swords.
October 2010

November 13
These were the really small fry on the day I bought them. Sorry about the quality they were taken with a cellphone




These were two days later. You couldn't tell if they were actually piranhas.







More to come

 

[alphar]

A month later only 4 of the original 11 were alive. I was a bit pissed because I couldn't even find the corpses because they were so small. The tubifex worms were easier to find. I followed the advice from the guys at the piranha fury forum and bought 4 more piranha from the same vendor. I bought the bigger ones and now all my piranha were between 1 and 2 inches.

I did water changes and gravel vacuum once a week with 30% water change. This is how the piranhas looked after one month.

December 16 2010

 

[lix.ma14]

wow! The frys look like guppies! Let's see the monsters now!

 

[alphar]

I tried to feed them pellets but they never ate them and I bought the expensive cichlids ones. Two years later I still have them. I found that it's easier and healthier to feed the piranhas unfrozen shrimp than live fish. It's also cheaper. I kept water at 27 celsius but eventually dropped the temperature little by little because the electric bill was getting expensive.

December 27 2010

 

[twistedsnap]

Never wanted any before but they def look good and nice tank cant wait to see more

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[alphar]

January 09 2011

Two months later they were getting red chicks and kept growing.

Full tank shot

A week later bought some Java Moss that we attached to some of the rocks.

 

[alphar]

On February 2011 I bought a Marineland Double Bright led (36 to 48 inch version) and installed it over the tank. I also added some java moss to a stone.The piranhas became psychos the first time I turned it on. After 3-4 days of leaving the light on for 4 hours a day, they got more used to it but still only stay at the bottom and don't swim a lot around the tank until the lights go out. Now they move more with the lights on but still they are not very fond of the lights. The moonlight lights no longer work. Probably because of humidity =(. And the electric plug stoped working after a week. I had to change it. I give this light a 6.5/10 rating.

February 08 2011

When I turned the lights on they got pretty stressed. Here they are

Stupid Java Moss that never got attached to the rock

Couple of days later piranhas were less stressed by the light

During Daylight

I ended up removing the java moss and placing some African Driftwood that I bought. I boiled the wood in water for around 6 hours and then left it over night in a bucket. The next day I placed it in the tank. 2 weeks later the water was brown. 2 months later the water was still brown. Word of advice, eventually after 6 months water will become clear again.

Then one sunday, one of the blinds felled down and the tank was exposed to constant sunlight so I covered the back part with black contact paper to avoid green algae problems. The tank became darker all day. Here are a couple of pics with the driftwood and the black background and looks almost as cool as the other pics from this forum.

Behold, black background tank

 

[twistedsnap]

Tank looks good soo far i have the same light on a 90 i got from a fellow mfkr i really like it i was wanting to put them on a few other tanks

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[alphar]

After another month, the piranhas were looking more and more like red bellies. I was happy they were not pacus but actual Pygocentrus nattereri.


March 18 2011

 

[alphar]

Thanks twistedsnap, do you have directly over the water or do you have some type of clear cover? Mine started failing after a couple months (only the moonlight).